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Monday, September 17, 2012

Chicken Paella (MasterChef)

Since young, I'm allergy to shellfish and prawns. For this reason, I have not tried cooking paella until now...

I am excited seeing this paella recipe in the kiddy version of MasterChef cookbook because there is only chicken used in this recipe. This recipe uses lovely legs which are drumsticks which have been skinned and part of the lower bone chopped off but I have replaced the lovely legs with skinless maryland. For my son. I have used more of thesweet Hungarian paprikaand add the chilli flakes last for my husband's serve to reduce the heat of this dish.

Not surprisingly at all, this is very flavoursome dish and look forward to cook more paelle in the future. As this recipe comes from a kiddy cookbook, we reckon that this recipe serves 4 young children but doesn't seem enough to feed 2 adults and 1 little child. Are we too hungry or too big in our appetite?

Junior MasterChef version of Chicken Paella

Making the tomato sauce

Cooking the chicken

Cooking the paella

Still cooking...

I can't wait to eat this serve of paella...

Here's the recipe from Junior MasterChef, Australia, Series 2 Cookbook(with my modification in blue)Serves: 4-6(I think this amount is enough to serve 4-6 young children - LOL!)1/2 tsp saffron threads2 tsp sweet Hungarian paprika(increase to 3 tsp)2 tsp smoked Spanish paprika(decrease to 1 tsp)1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes(add last for only "daddy's" serve)2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley2 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped 1 tbsp red wine vinegar 2 cloves garlic 1 small red onion, quartered1/2 lemon, juiced 2 tbsp olive oil 3 chicken 'lovely legs' (replaced with 5 small pieces of skinless maryland)3 chicken drumettes 1 small red capsicum, cut into strips150g green beans, trimmed, halved150g arborio rice1 (175g) chorizo sausage, thinly sliced250ml (1 cup) chicken stock (required 1 1/2 cup to fully cook rice to tender stage)Using a mortar and pestle, grind saffron threads until the strands are coarsely crushed. Add 1 tbsp hot water and leave for 10 min to infuse. Place the saffron and liquid, paprikas, chilli, half of the parsley, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic and onion in a blender or food processor. Add lemon juice, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper, and process until smooth.Heat oil in a 30cm (base measurement) paella pan or large, deep heavy-based frying pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook for 5 mins each side or until browned. Transfer to a plate. Reduce heat to medium, add capsicum and beans, and cook, stirring, for 5 min or until starting to soften. Add rice and chorizo and cook, stirring, for 1 min or until rice is opaque. Increase heat to high, add tomato mixture and cook, stirring, for 1 min or until bubbling and fragrant.Stir in 200ml chicken stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low-medium until gently simmering. Place chicken pieces on rice in pan and cook, uncovered, for 55 min without stirring. Check to see if there is any liquid. If not, pour remaining stock around edge of pan. Cook for a further 5 min or until rice is just tender - it should still have a slight bite to it. Remove from heat, scatter with remaining 1 tbs parsley and stand for 5 min before serving straight from the pan.Happy Cooking

This post is linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out. Do you wish to be inspired by any of these "MasterChefs"? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe (from the contestants, judges or even sponsors) from any MasterChef websites or cookbooks (any countries) and blog hop with us for the whole month of September 2012. For more details, please see this.

This is so mouth watering! Can't keep my eye on this delicious dish! Since I can't eat seafood coz of my allergy this will be great substitute for the usual paella! Can't wait to give try this out! Drooling.....

i'm really curious as how paella taste cos at one time i saw a lot of rice paella recipes on blogs. You did it so well, the colours are so attractive, even i'm not able to eat them, just by looking at it is already pleasing to my eyes :))

Oh, I didn't remember of seeing chicken paella on the website otherwise, this will also go to my list. I used to make seafood paella a lot, then I realised that Isabelle doesn't like congee(or risotto) & since then I've stopped cooking this dish! Gosh, the kid knows to use saffron in their cooking? Impressive! Love your version of the chicken paella! I can have it with a glass of sangria, hahaha!

What a wonderful dish. Good that the recipe uses chicken instead of seafood and all work out for you. I love the vibrant color of your dish, must be flavorful and delicious. I've never made a paella before but I guess I'll have to change that soon!

Hi Zoe,Lovely lovely chicken version paella.I see there is sweet Hungarian paprika and smoked Spanish paprika , it's the sweet Hungarian gives the colour of red and smoked spanish paprik gives the hot?Remember I ever ask you about the sweet Hungarian paprika, so happy I found it under McCormick products.

You are right that the sweet Hungarian paprika gives this dish a very nice reddish colour without lots of spiciness for the kids to handle. The Spanish paprika is more hot the Hungarian ones but to my husband, it just tickles him... LOL! Nevertheless, I have reduced the amount of Spanish paprika in my paella because I know that my son will "drama" a lot and can't handle at all with too much spiciness in his food.